Importing Video from Camera

Is there a program that is able to import (dv-firewire connection) video from a sony handycam camera, like Pinnacle does in windows. My only firewire connection is in my Ubuntu machine and the firewire to USB cables i bought don't work (in windows) s_vi=[CS]v1|27ABA194051D2A35-60000130A001B9A9[CE]

I suppose you checked on the flap (the screen) of your handycam the usb
connection. Normally you press on it and it connects automatically. What
is your Ubuntu distro?Mine is 10.10 and my handycam is a Sony avchd 7.1
Mb hdr PJ30.

I suppose you checked on the flap (the screen) of your handycam the usb connection?Normally you press on it and it connects automatically. What is your Ubuntu distro?Mine is 10.10 and my handycam is a Sony avchd 7.1 Mb hdr PJ30.

Ubuntu distro= 11.10
There is no information on the screen of the handycam about firewire/usb
connections, it's an oldie
(sony DCR/TRV 235)
Can you pls tell me how I can find out whether or not the the firewire
card is recognized by Ubuntu ?, with the new interface of Ubuntu it's
hard to find the correct information about installed hardware and
drivers (I liked the old interface much better)

Well, 1st, to find out about your hardware, open a terminal and type
hardinfo.

Enter

And you get something like this :

For drivers

Check in synaptics : xorg and see if the video is installed.
Unfortunately, I am no geek enough for better info!

As regards the interface of 11.10, I agree with you. I don't appreciate
Unity, but it is possible to display the classic aspect : As I am on
10.10 just now, I will have to reboot 11.04 ( I discarded 11.10 that
does not show much more interest than 11.04) and try to remember what I
did to have the classic display.

gvul> There is no information on the screen of the handycam about
gvul> firewire/usb connections, it's an oldie (sony DCR/TRV 235)

According to the manual I found ( admittedly in Polish but the
pictures are the same <lol> ) this camera doesn't have Firewire at
all. The options are composite video plus audio using RCA jacks,
S-Video, iLink ( a proprietary one apparently ), or USB using a
mini-USB plug to standard USB.

What cables did you get supplied with the camera ?

As for Firewire on Ubuntu I think that it's not supported well and to
be fair it never did take off as an idea with USB 2 matching speed and
now USB 3 far exceeding it.

1) this camera has a firewire connection, I've been using it in win xp
for ages and it worked fine, the only problem with win now is that the
card I have is pce and my new machine uses pce express, so I kept the
old machine and installed Ubuntu 11.10.
2) and yes, pinnacle 8 did support this connection, I have already a lot
of movies made with this program. It's a pity that Pinnacle does not
work under Ubuntu. I'm now using Pinnacle 14 and 15 and my plan was to
import the video using the old machine with the pce card and then
transporting the video file to Win 7.

hm, tried to answer you in French, but that's not allowed. I may look
stupid but my machine is in dutch and I cannot find this connection
window. Is there a possibility to do it via the terminal window ?
btw, the hardware info shows the firewirecard, so I'll have to study
further why the program does not see my camera. The cable and interfaces
are ok as another computer (my friends) 'sees' the camera.

iLink is the Sony brand name for Firewire and IEEE1394 connecting
cables/interfaces. The small plug should have a indent on one long side
and the other end can be the same or be a larger connector that looks
like a rectangle with a small triangle add to one of the narrow sides.
The larger connector can have 6 wires and supply power to the Firewire
device if necessary.
And now there is Firewire 800, another story.
Dan

drvul> iLink is the Sony brand name for Firewire and IEEE1394
drvul> connecting cables/interfaces.

Gotcha <lol> As far as the OP is concerned the pertinent fact is
perhaps that this camera also has USB and that's more likely to work
than Firewire anyway. Just needs the correct cable but these aren't
expensive so not a bar to trying - and in fact an existing camera USB
cable would probably work anyway.

... shows a USB connection but closer reading it's for model numbers
325 upwards ( one of those manuals that covers a range of similar
models with different feature sets and the 230 / 235 ones miss out on
USB ).

So, back to the drawing board re: Firewire, but there's the option of
S-Video or the composite video through RCA jack to investigate if
Firewire refuses to cooperate. You could always put WinXP back on and
dual-boot of course but that's a lot more work than you'd maybe want
unless you have a ton of video tapes you need to transfer.

Hi Gvanrij. I was wondering if you tried to install Pinnacle under WINE? If there is no H/W communication problem between Ubuntu and and your camera, you might get lucky and Pinnacle works under WINE. From WINEHQ.ORG, it seems Pinnacle Version. 9 runs under WINE, but version 10 and later do not. Also, the latest stable release of WINE is 1.4.
See: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=a pplication&iId=2114 .

I saw Daniel James was using Ubuntu 10.10. If you do not have a 10.10 CD, you might try burning one, and run Ubuntu from the CD ( live mode - you may need to "install" a few apps), and retry Kdenlive. Another possibility might be to burn a Linux Mint CD (probably 10 or later) and try it in "live" mode, as I understand Mint comes with more multi-media support. Following the comments your question, Daniel seems to have the best grasp of the problem.